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apotheon (5460)

I'm a third generation computer geek. I happen to like Perl, Ruby, XHTML, and C, in no particular order. I happen to dislike Visual Basic, VBScript, Python, and Java.

I'm a Linux geek — I'm a fan of Debian in particular. I know a lot about Windows system administration. The knowledge and experience that goes with my familiarity and expertise with Windows is part of the reason I like Debian GNU/Linux so much.

That's it for now.

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the anti-Unix

Eric S. Raymond, in his excellent book about Unix programming culture The Art of Unix Programming, said "To design the perfect anti-Unix, have no unifying idea at all, just an incoherent pile of ad-hoc features." Microsoft, in the development of its Windows operating systems, seems to be admirably succeeding in producing the anti-Unix, lacking a unifying idea and comprised of a nearly incoherent pile of ad-hoc features.

I haven't read the whole book yet. It's entirely possible that ESR will tie a reference to Windows back to this statement of his about the anti-Unix.

EDIT: Yes, he does indeed later say that there seems to be a distinct lack of unifying metaphor, theme, or "idea" for Windows. He also points out that it has been suggested that perhaps the unifying theme of Windows is "The customer must be locked in." That makes it, effectively, hostageware first and foremost. Everything else is an afterthought.